The Fédération étudiante universitaire du Québec (FEUQ) may have been one of the driving forces behind the successful tuition protests of 2012, but the group suffered a big blow this weekend when the federation representing 40,000 students at the Université de Montréal voted to go its own way.

The disaffiliation by the Fédération des associations étudiantes du campus de l’Université de Montréal (FAÉCUM) signals a huge shift in the student movement in Quebec — and threatens to destabilize the student mobilization against the provincial government’s austerity measures just as it has been building steam.

There is definitely turmoil in student associations across the province because of the disaffiliation since the FAÉCUM has indicated it wants to help build a new student association and it has been lobbying others to join it.

That doesn’t mean the remaining 80,000 students still belonging to the FEUQ are immediately jumping ship — but it does mean students across Quebec are weighing their options.

“Our priority is to ensure a sustainable future for the student movement,” said Julien Ouellet, vice-president external for the Post-Graduate Students’ Society at McGill University (PGSS), which belongs to the FEUQ. “The FEUQ has served us well in the past, but there is a lot of uncertainty now and there could be a new student federation that will be the biggest ever in Quebec.”

Vincent Fournier Gosselin, secretary-general of FAÉCUM, said the federation, which represents 83 student associations at U de M, has become disenchanted with FEUQ’s representation and wants to lay the foundation for a new organization that will better defend the rights and interests of students.

He said the FEUQ has lost members in recent years and FAÉCUM hasn’t found it to be effective enough recently as a political lobby group.

FEUQ president Jonathan Bouchard said his organization is still viable and expressed disappointment that FAÉCUM hadn’t held a referendum on the question of disaffiliation, saying its leaders have always insisted that others do so.

Ouellet also expressed disappointment in the way the situation was handled by FAÉCUM.

“Some of their criticism of the FEUQ is fair and some of it is utterly unfair,” he said in an interview. “It is not a given that they will be successful (in establishing a new student association).”

He also said rumours of the FEUQ’s dissolution have been exaggerated. “It’s too soon to say if FEUQ will die; it can certainly operate without them.”

Members of the Concordia Student Union are also disappointed with FAÉCUM’s process of disaffiliation and believe “they have set a bad example and a negative precedent,” according to CSU president Benjamin Prunty. However, the CSU will also be deciding about where its “provincial affiliations” lie in the coming months, he said.

Rather than dividing the student movement and diluting its focus as it attempts to build another comprehensive mobilization — about 50,000 students are on strike and 80,000 are expected to strike on April 2 when another big demonstration is planned — some student leaders believe the developing situation with FAÉCUM might actually revitalize the movement.

“People feel the FEUQ is not able to mobilize students as it once did and building a new student organization may be good,” said Brice Dansereau-Olivier, an organizer for the Comité Printemps 2015, which has been seeking to bring together students and workers to oppose austerity. “It could be a positive development that gives renewed energy.”

But Bouchard said this is not the time for a divided movement and there is certainly strength in unity as students push forward with their fight against government austerity. “We need to work together,” he said.

Students want “direct democracy” as opposed to the representative democracy offered by FEUQ, Dansereau-Olivier said in an interview. This would put decision-making in the hands of large general assemblies rather than executive committees, he explained.

“This signals a real shift in the way student organizing is done,” he said. “The FEUQ just seems to have lost some of its influence on students.”

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